A Delicious Day of Yummy Art

After sleeping until past noon (9.5 hours of blissful slumber), I slowly emerged and glided through the day eating some of my favorite foods (compressed tofu lightly sauteed with baby spinach, kimchi, and raw carrots) and reading the poetry of Cavafy and Lorca. I have the most complete collection of Federico Garcia Lorca poems, a [...]

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Devastated by Cavafy

I adore the poetry of Constantine P. Cavafy, the poet originally from Alexandria who made a habit of writing in demotic Greek in the early 20th Century. Often he drew on history for many of his poems, but he also wrote about personal experiences, about love, sex, long lost passion that still lived long in [...]

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Good News

The following is intended to be read aloud.
Good News. She didn’t even charge me for desert. Good News. Salim found the goat. Good News. I found it under the backseat, oh, and this too. Good News. I was able to salvage the carburetor. Good News. She fired me. Good News. He’s fine; thank God the [...]

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Help My Sister Get Out of Jail

Seems another person in my tribe has gotten into trouble. My sister, Maria Toscano Forlenza is in jail right now in Monticello, NY. The good news is that we can bail her out and the money goes to a good cause–The Muscular Dystrophy Association.
Maria wrote me the other day,
I’m proud to tell you that I’m [...]

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Thoughts about Sex

I’ve been thinking a lot about sex these days. No, not the pornographic, salacious thoughts (well, not mostly). I’ve been thinking about the role of sex in my life and especially in the route I took to de-gay myself. In part these thoughts have been inspired by conversations with some folks who recently contacted me [...]

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21-grain bread, quadruple chocolate vegan cake & 3D Weird Movie

My day started with a 6:10 am flight from Spokane, WA to Portland, OR. Joining me on the journey was Doris Lessing in the form of her novel, The Cleft, a chilling post-modern myth of human origin mixed in with a deft commentary on the politics of gender.
After an afternoon coffee with Ben, a fellow [...]

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Telling Our Stories here there & everywhere

Strange, but I have had nothing to write the past few days. Mostly because it has been busy with shows at Susquehanna and Bucknell Universities along with several meetings with folks here in Central PA.
Yesterday I had lunch with Rev. Barry Stopfel. Barry was in the middle of a religious fury over 10 years ago [...]

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Transfiguring

I will prepare all day for this evening’s performance of Transfigurations–Transgressing Gender in the Bible. In addition to the internal prep (running lines, envisioning each character, etc) I have external work to do. I need to iron all the costumes and scarves. I then need to work on a physical transformation–plucking eyebrows, shaving off all [...]

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Doin’ Time with Christopher Hitchens, Peter Gomes and Harold Kushner

I feel like I just stepped out of a Dr. Seuss book–Oh the Places You’ll Go!
Yesterday I spent about six hours with Christopher Hitchens, Peter Gomes, and Harold Kushner. No, I was not having a read-a-thon about faith or the need to annihilate it. Instead I had the privilege of volunteering for the Connecticut Forum, [...]

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Affirmed

I don’t know about you, but I sat transfixed all day in my PJs in front of my laptop watching Inaugural events live and streaming through CNN/Facebook (as I added to the running commentary of status updates and comments). We have effectively run out of language to express the historic, momentous, outrageously incredibly joyous reality [...]

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Get a little Xhosa

As I sit waiting for what I hear is about the fifth major winter storm since Christmas, I feel warm and content inside my cozy apartment and even more so as I bask in the afterglow of my holiday in South Africa. What a rich time!
Glen (my guy) and Jenna (his colleague) went home a [...]

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Doin’ Time in South Africa

I had a very South African Christmas with Glen and his family. They traditionally eat ham and eggs for breakfast with a shandy (beer mixed with carbonated lemonade). I passed on the animal products and opted for one of my personal favorites–beans on toast. I did not turn down the shandy.
On Tuesday Glen, Jenna (his [...]

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